


From Fault

by Venstar



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, POV First Person, Sick Fic, no death but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 18:43:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14858177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venstar/pseuds/Venstar
Summary: It’ll never work.  I’m doomed, and so is he if he keeps looking at me like that.  Terminal, that’s what it is and what we’ll be.





	From Fault

**Author's Note:**

> \-- For the MI6 Cafe Manuscript challenge to write something based on a randomly found line in a Fleming book. The second part of the challenge was to use a randomly found line from a book in a different genre and smoosh them together. I used a line FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. it was the ONLY non spy/thriller book near me at the time. I blame the young people that live with me. This is the result.
> 
> \-- also i took artistic liberty with dialogue tags and decided to use them or not use them. italics = anything not said by Q. 
> 
> \--beta'd by @spiritofcamelot

In the past eighteen months, my mets have hardly grown, leaving me with lungs that suck at being lungs but could conceivably, struggle along indefinitely with the assistance of drizzled oxygen and daily Phalanxifor.

I have some time. Life’s a struggle and then you die, or so they say. Cancer makes people ask the stupidest questions.

_“Where do you want to be buried?”_

“Nowhere, salt the bones and burn the body.”

They select cremation. I make them nervous.

_“Who should we notify?”_

I’m slow on the upkeep with this answer. I wish I could list someone. A pair of ice-blue eyes, full of amusement pass through my thoughts for half a second, but I dismiss that thought. Some things are never meant to be. No matter how hard you wish for them. I’ve wasted enough candles on hopeless wishes. A throat clears.

“No one.” The answer is hasty and dismissed.

_“Next of kin?”_

“Orphans make the best recruits.”

_“That’s just a rumor.”_

“Alone is all I have.” I wish this wasn’t true, but what did I say about wasted candles.

_“Q…”_

Someone starts to speak, but their voice trail off in pity or in the realization that they’re about to say something extremely stupid. I touch the tubes that are now a part of me and adjust them for the nth time squared, and then I adjust my glasses.

“Are we done here?”

Half a dozen throats are cleared. Five grown men and one lone woman carefully taking notes. Six people devoted solely to the inevitable. I should be flattered.

_“Yes.”_

The sound of chairs scraping is like an awkward break for freedom. Flee from the terminally ill, it might be catching. I shouldn’t be so mean about it, but that’s all I have left, my caustic wit. As long as I can work this failing body as the Quartermaster, I’ll do it. I’ll die in the middle of Churchill’s old brick and mortar bunkers if I have to. For Queen and Country. Too young to die, too dumb to care.

_“Goodnight, Q,”_ the security guards say as I drag my portable lungs behind me.

I really should make a backpack for this. I rattle the handle, like a beggar with a bucket. Well, this beggar wishes he could choose. With every crack in the pavement, I hear the clink of metal. Thankfully I don’t have far to go, a company car waits for me, to take me home. I like to think of it as practice for my funeral. Shove the corpse in and slowly drive him to his resting place.

_“Home, sir?”_

“No, once around the graveyard please.”

_“Beg pardon, sir?”_

A pathetic whine of a sigh comes out of my cramped lungs. “Home.” Nobody likes morbid humor anymore.

Stairs or elevator, stairs or elevator. One hand clenching my portable life and the other....shaking my keys. I’ll take the damned stairs. If I die, I die out of a box. One step after the other. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Inhale, exhale, cough. I’ve paid so much attention to cursing my large green exterior lung, that I haven’t noticed until it’s too late that I’ve run into someone.

_“Easy there.”_

“Bond?”

_“Q. How lovely to see you, al-”_

Before he can continue, I interrupt. “How did you get here? Why are you here? Is there an emergency?” I sigh as heavily as I can, there’s always an emergency. I wonder who it is this time. “Is it 006...again?”

There’s a half smile on his face and his hand is still steadying me. It’s warm on my elbow. It never fails that this agent shows up whenever and wherever he pleases, although why here I have no idea, unless M needs something.

_“Hello, Q. I walked down two floors. I live here too.”_ The voice was deep and provocative. There was very little of his Scottish accent left. A pity, I’d always hoped to hear it more. The Skyfall incident had brought it out of him shortly. _“And 006 can handle himself. I’ll tell him that you were worried though.”_

“You live here?” I ask him and tug at my arm, trying to disengage from him.

_“As I said.”_

I have to ask. I can’t not. “Did M assign you to me?” It was only so long before I would become a true liability. Running into Bond without even noticing him proves it. Only a slight flicker of surprise is evident around the corner of his eyes. The surprise turns into crinkled amusement.

_“No. I didn’t even know you lived here. Apparently that’s supposed to be secret knowledge. I just returned-”_

“From Russia, yes I know. If I recall, I barely managed to get you out alive.”

_“Extradition orders can be so tricky. Thankfully, my Quartermaster has an interesting way with authority.”_

“Well then. Move. This tin of air isn’t getting any lighter and I’m sure you have ‘I’ve returned in one piece’ errands I’m keeping you from.”

Using what strength I have, I try to shove past the hulking bulldog. Except said bulldog takes hold of my tin of air.

_“Allow me.”_

“Not an invalid.”

We enter into a tug of war over my oxygen, but he’s stubborn, nearly as stubborn as I am. He wins, I’m weak.

_“Yes you are.”_

I level my best glare at him and he just smiles back, the daft bastard.

“You do want all of your equipment in working order next mission, don’t you?”

_“Yes, which is why I’m going to haul this ‘tin of air’ as you said up so that I have a fully functioning Quartermaster in the morning and for as long as I can have him.”_

There’s only one more flight of stairs to my floor. I snort as I allow him to help me the remainder of the way.

“You don’t have me.”

_“A technicality. Keep you then.”_

My hand is steady as I jam my keys in the lock. This is a strange conversation. “Having and keeping are two different things.”

His hand falls on mine.

_“I know.”_

He’s looking at me so intently I suddenly wonder if I’ve got a nosebleed again. I touch the edge of my nose, nothing comes off on my hand. It must be him that’s wrong. “Have you hit your head?”

I’m worried now, he’s just back from Russia, the edges of bruises still peek out from under his collar and there are fresh scars on the back of his hands. He didn’t mention any head wounds, but it’s not like he’s ever NOT lied to medical.

_“No.”_

“Are you lying to me?”

A laugh at least falls away from him and he turns my key and pushes my door open for me. My key swings away from my hand.

_“No. Actually, I was on my way to see you.”_

“Me? I thought you didn’t know where I lived.”

_“I didn’t. I was headed to Q-branch actually.”_

“You’re fresh off the plane, you’ve never-”

It’s him that interrupts me this time.

_“However, this is much nicer than skulking around MI6 looking for you and avoiding M.”_

He’s giving me that look again, this time with a bit of a once over. I don’t grace him with any words, I hope my glare works just fine. It doesn't.

“I’m gratified you found me so convenient then.”

He only chuckles and it’s music. Bastard. I’m hungry, tired and starting to breathe a bit heavier, but all that discomfort fades as he pulls out a small package and holds it out.  “I didn’t issue that. It’s not a body part, is it?”

_“How forward of you Q. If it were?”_

That bloody bastard taps my nose, as if I’m cute. He presses the package in my hands and I’m still just staring at it.

“It’s not a necklace made from the teeth of a komodo dragon, is it?”

That earns a bark of laughter from him and that drags a smile out of me. He helps me open it, since all I can do is stare at it with trepidation. The brown heavy paper falls away. I wasn’t expecting the snow globe. Teeth of a komodo dragon, yes...an incendiary device...maybe.

_“From Russia, with love.”_

“With…”

I look for it, there’s no inscription, but there’s that same look of intensity on his face.

It’ll never work. I’m doomed, and so is he if he keeps looking at me like that. Terminal, that’s what it is and what we’ll be.


End file.
